Opposing Arabic hashtags “Renaissance Dam” and “fill the dam” are trending in Egypt and Ethiopia following the news that Addis Ababa has begun the second phase of filling the dam, a reflection of how polarised the issue has become between the two Nile basin countries. The downstream states Egypt and Sudan have been locked into a dispute with Ethiopia for almost ten years now, maintaining that filling the dam will diminish their water supply. Egypt is heavily dependent on Nile water which it uses for drinking water, agriculture and electricity, and wanted to reach a binding agreement on its share of water before the dam’s reservoir was filled. #Ethiopia lost 1 billion cubic meters of the 1st filling when trying … Continue reading Egypt and Ethiopia at war, virtually, over the Renaissance Dam